FOUR FREE NEIGHBORHOOD
CONCERTS PRESENTED AS PART OF
CARNEGIE HALL’S CITYWIDE FESTIVAL JapanNYC, MARCH
26–27 AND APRIL 2, 9

Artists Set to Perform Include Shamisen Players Yutaka
Oyama & Masahiro Nitta,
Taiko Drummers of Soh Daiko, and Line C3 Percussion Group

35th Anniversary Celebration of Carnegie Hall’s
Neighborhood Concert Series
Continues with Other Spring Highlights to Include
the Punch Brothers with Chris Thile, ETHEL,
Regina Carter’s Reverse Thread, The Parker
Quartet, and More

This spring,
Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI) continues to bring unique
and compelling performances to community venues throughout the five
boroughs of New York City with its FREENeighborhood
Concert Series, now celebrating its 35th anniversary.
Performances are given by top artists across multiple genres including
classical, jazz, world, and bluegrass music. In addition, WMI presents a
number of family-friendly programs in community venues in The
McGraw-Hill Companies CarnegieKids series.

JapanNYC Neighborhood Concerts
Carnegie Hall’s citywide festival JapanNYC
returns this spring with more than 40 events, including four free
Neighborhood Concerts. JapanNYC invites audiences to explore
the incredible diversity of Japanese arts and culture with performances
and events at Carnegie Hall and New York City partner venues. The
festival explores the world of Japan today, where artists embrace their
country’s unique aesthetic sensibilities while continually revitalizing
its cultural landscape. Led by famed conductor Seiji Ozawa as Artistic
Director, JapanNYC celebrates a country that values its
long-standing cultural heritage while also embracing and transforming
Western art forms, in a spirit that very much looks ahead.

Yutaka Oyama and Masahiro Nitta; Saturday, March
26 at 3:00 p.m.; Abrons Arts Center (Lower East Side, Manhattan)—Performing
on the Tsugaru shamisen, a banjolike instrument from northern Japan,
Oyama and Nitta bring a modern sensibility to an ancient, highly
percussive folk music. Oyama and Nitta present a program featuring
traditional music from Northern and Southern Japan, the elaborate and
animated folk “Japanese bluegrass” songs of Tsugaru, as well as original
music by the duo. Click
here to see a video sample of the duo.

Soh Daiko; Sunday, March 27 at 2:00 p.m.;
Brooklyn Center for Performing Arts and Saturday, April 9 at 8:00 p.m.;
Lehman Stages at Lehman College (Bronx)—Performing in two
Neighborhood Concerts, the taiko drummers of Soh Daiko present a varied
repertoire deriving from Shinto music traditions, as well as adaptions
of existing taiko compositions and original compositions/arrangements by
ensemble members. In addition to drums, the group uses instruments such
as the bamboo flute, brass bells, conch shells, and gongs. Much more
than just percussion, Soh Daiko’s presentation also features movement
and choreography, requiring the physical strength, endurance, and energy
that makes taiko such an exciting performance experience.

Line C3 Percussion Group; Saturday, April 2 at
8:00 p.m.; LaGuardia Performing Arts Center (Queens)—This
entertaining group plays virtuosic percussion music with unbelievable
skill and an enthusiasm that’s infectious. On this concert, part of
Carnegie Hall’s JapanNYC festival, Line C3 performs works by
Michio Kitazume, Toru Takemitsu, Hiroya Miura—all composers from
Tokyo—as well as music by New York composer Nico Muhly, whose music is
influenced by Japanese culture.

The McGraw-Hill Companies CarnegieKids
WMI’s family-friendly program continues to be presented in
local venues with performances by children’s favorites Hot Peas ‘N
Butter and The Itty Biddies. These free, interactive, 45-minute concerts
are fun for the whole family, but especially appropriate for children
ages three to six and feature songs, movement, and instrument
demonstrations and create opportunities for musical creativity and play.

The McGraw-Hill Companies CarnegieKids
presents: The Itty Biddies; Saturday, March 5 at 2:00 p.m.; Snug Harbor
Cultural Center (Staten Island)—The Itty Biddies' genre-defying
sound has earned the group an avid following. Their interactive,
energetic show takes children on a musical journey around the US and
beyond through song and storytelling. The audience will dance at a
hoedown, soar over imaginary rivers, and play instruments they didn’t
know they had. The Itty Biddies' show is a joyful celebration for all,
including parents and teachers!

The McGraw-Hill Companies CarnegieKids
presents: Hot Peas ‘N Butter; Saturday, March 19 at 3:00 p.m.; Hostos
Community College (Bronx)—Hot Peas 'N Butter is a unique
children’s musical group that melds elements of traditional Latin and
Afro-Caribbean music with jazz, folk, and rock styles. By approaching
multicultural music performance with an invigorating, interactive style,
Hot Peas 'N Butter inspires creativity in kids and adults alike.

Additional Spring Highlights, Carnegie Hall’s
Neighborhood Concert SeriesManhattan Brass Quintet; Friday, March 11 at 7:30
p.m.; The Performance Project @ University Settlement (Lower East Side,
Manhattan)—Chosen as a Critic’s Pick by Time Out New York,
the award-winning Manhattan Brass Quintet is best known for its
innovative programming, dynamic performances, eye-opening repertoire,
and commitment to educating audiences of all ages about live music and
the brass idiom. Currently in its 18th season, the ensemble is an
amalgam of individual virtuoso musicians, each bringing to the table a
unique experience and vision. Comfortable in every genre from
Renaissance music to jazz, the quintet is intent on taking brass
ensemble playing to a new level and bringing its audience along for the
ride.

Regina Carter’s Reverse Thread Sunday,
March 13 at 3:00 p.m.; Brooklyn Museum—Reverse Thread
is a reflection of Carter’s new approach to world music. After receiving
the 2006 MacArthur Fellowship grant, this windfall of generous funding
went towards supporting her research of African music traditions.
Carter’s extensive studies and adventurous musical sensibilities have
resulted in the combination of the violin with the majestic kora, the
21-stringed African instrument; these two instruments are joined by the
more standard accordion, guitar, bass, and drums.

Chris Washburne and the SYOTOS Band; Saturday,
March 19 at 4:00 p.m.; El Museo del Barrio (Harlem, Manhattan)—Chris
Washburne and the SYOTOS Band push the boundaries of Latin jazz,
embracing dissonance and fusing contemporary up-tempo beats with a
driving sound. Time Out New York has called them a “Latin jazz
institution.” Holding the longest running Latin jazz gig in New York
City’s history, SYOTOS carries an impressive legacy with former
musicians of the Tito Puente and Eddie Palmieri bands. The group’s most
recent album Field of Moons was released in 2010 on the
Jazzheads Records label.

The Parker Quartet; Sunday, April 3 at 2:00 p.m.;
Flushing Town Hall (Queens)—The Parker Quartet, which is
celebrating its recent Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance,
began its professional touring career in 2002 and in 2005 sparked
international acclaim by winning the Concert Artists Guild Competition
as well as the Grand Prix and Mozart Prize at the 2005 Bordeaux
International String Quartet Competition in France. Most recently, the
quartet was awarded the prestigious 2009–2011 Cleveland Quartet Award.
Hailed by The New York Times as “something extraordinary” and
by The Boston Globe for their “fiercely committed
performances,” The Parker Quartet has rapidly distinguished itself as
one of the preeminent ensembles of its generation.

New York Arabic Orchestra featuring Bassam Saba;
Tuesday, April 12 at 7:00 p.m.; The Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture (Manhattan)—Carnegie Hall presents the New York
Arabic Orchestra as part of Muslim World Music Day—a worldwide, one-day
event organized by The Archive of Contemporary Music and Columbia
University. This event has two focuses: a live online effort to identify
and catalog 50,000 recordings of Muslim music and a series of live
concerts around the world to celebrate the diversity, beauty and
cultural importance of Muslim music. Bassam Saba and his orchestra will
perform innovative interpretations of pieces from the classical Arabic
repertoire, works by distinguished modern composers such as Marcel
Khalifeh, and original music written by founder and conductor Bassam
Saba whose music brings a new distinctive voice to Arabic music.

Celso Duarte Ensemble; Thursday, May 5 at 7:30
p.m.; Jamaica Performing Arts Center (Queens)—Celso Duarte is a
virtuoso of Paraguayan harp and Mexican jarocho harp, an arranger,
singer, and multi-talented instrumentalist. Duarte has performed and
recorded with Lila Downs since 1998 and has also accompanied and
collaborated with other artists, including Susana Baca, Celso Piña,
Placido Domingo, Mariza, Ramón Vargas, Julieta Venegas, Wynton Marsalis,
The Chieftains, and Ry Cooder. As a solo artist, he has performed with
his band at Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Joe's Pub, and other historic
venues. His first solo album, De Sur a Sur (From South to South),
was released in 2006.

Charlie Porter Jazz Quartet; Sunday, May 15 at
3:00 p.m.; Abrons Arts Center (Lower East Side, Manhattan)—Charlie
Porter recently released his first album as a band leader, entitled Initiation
and featuring the quartet playing all original compositions by Porter.
The personnel on the recording includes Adam Birnbaum on piano, Scott
Ritchie on bass, and Jon Wikan on drums. They recorded the album just
before departing for a recent tour of South Asia, where they played in
India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Dhaka, and Turkey.

ETHEL; Tuesday, June 21 at 6:30 p.m.; Abrons Arts
Center (Lower East Side, Manhattan)—As part of the annual music
festival Make Music New York, the string quartet ETHEL offers a program
centered around John Cage’s seminal 4’33”. ETHEL is known for
performing original music as well as works by notable contemporary
composers such as Julia Wolfe, John Zorn, Don Byron, Marcelo Zarvos,
Pamela Z, Phil Kline, John King, and many more. The group has also
collaborated with rock artists Joe Jackson and Todd Rundgren, which
included an appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

The Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall
The Weill Music Institute creates broad-reaching music
education and community programs that play a central role in Carnegie
Hall’s commitment to making great music accessible to as wide an
audience as possible. Woven into the fabric of the Carnegie Hall concert
season, these programs occur at Carnegie Hall as well as in schools and
throughout neighborhoods, providing musical opportunities for everyone,
from preschoolers to adults, new listeners to emerging professionals.
With access to the world’s greatest artists and latest technologies, the
Weill Music Institute is uniquely positioned to inspire the next
generation of music lovers, to nurture tomorrow’s musical talent, and to
shape the evolution of musical learning itself. The Weill Music
Institute’s school and community programs annually serve over 170,000
children, students, teachers, parents, young music professionals, and
adults in the New York metropolitan area and across the US, with more
than an additional 100,000 people taking advantage of WMI’s online music
education resources.

With special thanks to the National Endowment for the
Arts; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan; the Agency for Cultural
Affairs of Japan; Japan Tourism Agency; Japan National Tourism
Organization; the Japan Foundation; and the Consulate-General of Japan
in New York.